


Not that Kendra

by WardofWinters (QoLife)



Series: Fablehaven One-Shots [3]
Category: Fablehaven Series - Brandon Mull
Genre: Kendra is so happy, Poor Alyssa, and very good at avoidance, she also gets the love she deserves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-01
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:48:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23952580
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QoLife/pseuds/WardofWinters
Summary: Kendra was finally at college, only to run into her old friend Alyssa, who thinks she's dead.
Relationships: Bracken/Kendra Sorenson
Series: Fablehaven One-Shots [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1719514
Comments: 15
Kudos: 33





	Not that Kendra

**Author's Note:**

> I might make a sequel, no plans for it at the moment. Please Read and Review!

**Not that Kendra**

Kendra had just finished setting up her dorm for college.

She had been doing online school, thanks to Andromadus and Bracken working to make her a new identity.

She was still Kendra, just… new social security number. Otherwise it was exactly the same, well, they probably did some other stuff to confirm that she exists, but mostly everything was the same.

She was relieved that they had done it. She didn’t want to have to hide away forever.

But now she was starting college! A year early actually, doing all the work at home was a lot easier and faster than doing it at a school.

She was 17 and at college at last! She couldn’t wait to meet her roommate, and go to classes, and join clubs, and do so much stuff!

Her roommate was a year older than her (expected) but seemed nice enough.

Her side of the room had little fairy lights (ha) and a few plants, her bookshelf with the desk is neatly arranged, her clothes put up, dresser arranged, and her plugs all set up. Plus a few… discreet weapons. Just in case.

She might know how to use her power to fight now, but still, she can’t use that against normal humans without questions happening. Best to keep a few weapons with her, Vanessa helped her get them.

Her roommate had gone out with some friends, so Kendra had the room to herself. She ended up just calling Bracken on her earpiece (bracken had enchanted it like the stones and coins, it didn’t work for anything but talking to him) and wasting away the night talking to him.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kendra jolted up to her alarm blaring in the morning.

Ah right, time for classes.

She quickly got up and turned off her alarm. Then headed off to grab her toiletries and get ready for the day.

After pulling on her clothes, jeans and a t-shirt with a fairy on it with text saying “I’m Magical” (a joke gift from Seth that was extremely comfortable) she grabbed her bag and made sure she had her books, calculator, and computer.

First class of the day was English, a writing class. She thinks she’ll have fun in it.

Finding the class wasn’t hard, and she has a great teacher! His name was Mr. Shield, how fun! They spent the whole class on the syllabus, and only got through the first two points. Apparently it would take time to get to the actual content of the class.

She also couldn’t help but notice that one of the students in her class was actually not human, she wasn’t sure what kind of magical creature they were. They had flaming hair though. She decided to ignore it for now.

After that class she had an hour break where she grabbed some food from the Einstein bagels (she forgot breakfast) and went over the syllabus for English.

She arrived at her next class, biology, 15 minutes early and sat against the wall to wait, puling out her phone.

College so far seems fun! She can’t wait to find out what her bio teacher is like and English seemed like it wouldn’t be hard and she was really excited for-

“Kendra!?”

She blinked, turning to look.

Oh shit.

It was Alyssa, from her old school, one of her old friends, who think she’s dead.

Uh oh.

“Ken-“ Alyssa had tears in her eyes, “Is that you?”

Uh oh Uh oh Uh oh.

She can’t say yes.

“Um, my name is Kendra, yeah,” this is gonna hurt, “Who are you?”

Alyssa stared, “I-“

The door’s opened suddenly and students came out.

“Well, class is starting, nice to meet you Alyssa!”

Nailed it.

She bolted inside.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alyssa hadn’t been expecting to see her long dead friend in front of her when she went to Biology.

After Kendra died she’d really doubled down on her schoolwork, ended up skipping a grade. It had hurt a lot to lose Kendra.

She still kept in contact with her other friends, but she felt like she had to do good, if only to do it for Kendra too. They’d used to talk about skipping grades together, being top of their class. She’d done it to honor Kendra, in her memory she would be the best of the best.

And then, she arrived at class, and Kendra was just sitting there, scrolling through her phone, waiting for the doors to open.

And then she claimed to not know Alyssa, up until she bolted inside before Alyssa could answer, and called her by her name.

Kendra was alive somehow, and she was at Alyssa’s college (both of their dream school that they had talked about getting into together all the time). And she was pretending not to know Alyssa.

That wouldn’t stand.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kendra had managed to hide from Alyssa for the rest of class. But she wasn’t sure how long that could stand.

She saw Alyssa trying to follow her after class, but Kendra had lots of experience dogging pursuers, Alyssa would have to do better than that.

Kendra called Bracken though to freak out about it.

“It’s okay Kendra, she can’t be certain as long as you don’t slip up. I’m sorry this is happening though. I know it’s hard to hide from your friend.”

“Yeah, it is. I just want to hug her and cry, but… I can’t.” Kendra kept her head ducked while she talked to Bracken, mentally cause this was a private conversation.

“Well, if you want I can come by.”

“No, it’s fine Bracken, really, I’ll just… avoid her. I like my bio teacher, so I won’t drop the class, but I can sneak past her. It’ll… it’ll be fine.”

“Alright, stay safe Kendra.”

“I will.”

With that Kendra had to move on, she had to get to her next class, then complete the bio homework, and probably the homework for her calc class (oh she suffers).

And calc was hard, they jumped right in, barely an introduction before going into the first subject. She was gonna struggle here a bit, she would have to put extra work in here.

After that she went to the library before doing a quick turn around when she saw Alyssa standing at the entrance looking around.

Maybe there’s a back entrance?

Looking around, out of Alyssa’s sight, she managed to find another entrance, it was locked but banging on the door brought someone over to open it, even if she looked rude.

She ended up spending the rest of the evening there, only realizing when her stomach growled that she’d forgotten lunch.

Well, at least her homework was done, she’d even managed the next calc assignment early, she didn’t fully understand the concepts but she’d looked them up and managed well enough.

She snuck out again through the back entrance, she’d get some Wendy’s, there was one right by her dorm.

She snagged her food, and headed back to her dorm, standing to wait for the elevator, only to realize that Alyssa was there too. She quickly turned to the stairs before Alyssa could see her and started the hike to the 8th floor.

She’d keep in good shape for adventures this way!

The walk itself wasn’t hard, and she ended up going up with the flame haired girl from her English class.

They chatted on the way up and Kendra thinks she made a new friend. She didn’t comment on the fiery hair, and she was pretty sure her light was hidden enough that her new friend (Rachel) didn’t notice it.

Their rooms were on the same floor and comparing classes showed that they had the same teacher for bio, just different sections.

Kendra ended up helping Rachel learn the material from today (for Kendra, Rachel had Tuesday Thursday classes, longer but less often). 

After doing that, and eating food, Rachel split back to her room and Kendra dropped into bed, exhausted.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Alyssa didn’t understand!

It had been two months since she’d found out Kendra was alive, and she somehow was avoiding her.

Alyssa had seen her around, but she was very good at avoiding Alyssa. And had somehow gained a few friends that were ready to fight Alyssa when they caught Alyssa following them. They threatened to call the police for stalking!?

It was infuriating. That was her Kendra! She wanted to find out how she was alive! She wanted to talk to her! What was going on?

Kendra was never in the library, though somehow bees kept getting in, and she somehow seemed to disappear in Bio, but Alyssa had talked to the teacher and Kendra had perfect attendance.

Trying to find out Kendra’s other classes were an effort in futility. She was excellent at slipping away from Alyssa the few times she saw her. And trying to find her dorm was straight up impossible.

She’d tried to talk to some other students in Bio about setting up a study group and recommended one of them invite Kendra since she was really good at Bio. But when they tried Kendra said she already had a study group!

Alyssa just needed five minutes with Kendra, but it looked like she’d need to call for help.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

She really appreciated that the fairy queen had sent a few fairies to help her out. Two of them (very pretty bee fairies) kept an eye on Alyssa, warning Kendra when she got too close. The other three mostly hung around Kendra, just pretending to be normal butterflies. As Kendra was the fairy queen’s handmaiden, they considered it a great honor and took guarding her very seriously.

Though they were careful to seem normal around Kendra’s friends.

And wow her friends were something.

The fiery haired one was apparently a demon, according to Sholuna, one of her fairy guards. But Rachel was super nice and Kendra didn’t see a problem with her.

Another of her friends, Arya, was an elf. Like from Norse mythology. She was apparently a light elf, and was super nice and extremely good at calculus.

Her final friend, John, was a blix, a viviblix to be precise.

She’d found that out when he’d been talking about his home. He’d made a small slip that she was sure all three of them had caught, but none of them commented.

Somehow even at a normal human school, all her friends were magical beings.

She just accepted it. She hadn’t revealed her fairy kind status yet, but she suspected they had an idea of it. She was kinda famous amongst the magical community after all.

But now, it was family weekend, and while Kendra’s family couldn’t risk coming with Alyssa on the lookout, Bracken, Warren, and Vanessa were coming.

She was excited to introduce her friends, she’d told Bracken about them, and called with Warren and Vanessa about it so they knew too. But actually meeting with them was different.

None of them cared about the football game, Warren said he’d record it and they could just go out to eat and have fun.

Which was good, cause none of her friends liked big crowds. Which Kendra related too.

Nonetheless, it should be a fun weekend!

She huffed when one of the fairies, Veronica, tugged at her hair. They liked doing her hair, considered it part of their responsibilities. No matter how many times she explained they didn’t have to.

It was easiest to just let them, so she dropped her hands and let Veronica fix up her hair.

It was nice that it never took long to do her hair, and she always looked good with them around (the fairies often put flowers or sparkly hair pins in, they’d made her buy more than one pretty hair piece so they could do her hair).

She hurried out to meet with her family coming, her fairy guards drifting along with her, Milana sitting on her shoulder.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Another month and Alyssa finally got the backup she needed.

Trina and Brittany were here. They were seniors in high school still, but it was their break, and not the colleges. Which meant that the three of them together could find Kendra!

They’d only agreed to come help when Alyssa had managed to snag a picture of Kendra. Even if one of those stupid bees had gotten in the way a bit, it was still clearly Kendra.

She really hated those bees.

Now though, they were off to find Kendra! She would not escape them this time!

It took hours of scouring, but they finally found her at a café, with… some very cute guy?

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Kendra was enjoying her date with Bracken. Both of them were free for the weekend and had decided to spend time together.

It was so fun! They’d gotten a really good lunch, gone to a movie, and now were sitting and snacking at a café, after they were going to go to the gardens!

It was the perfect date, and her guards were giving them privacy, since Bracken was more than capable of defending Kendra.

They had just received their drinks (hot chocolate for them both) when a hand landed on her shoulder.

Kendra jolted, twisting to see, oh no, Alyssa. And Trina, and Brittany.

Uh oh.

“Kendra!”

“Oh my god it is you!”

Trina lunged to hug her and she stiffened.

“Um, who are you?” Thank heavens for Bracken.

“Uh, I’m Trina? I’m Kendra’s friend. Anyways, Kendra! I can’t believe you’re alive! I thought you were dead!”

“We all did! We went to your funeral!”

Kendra shifted, pulling back, “Uh..”

“Sorry, but I think you have the wrong Kendra.”

Bracken was officially her favorite person.

“Wrong Kendra?” Brittany didn’t look happy.

Trina was the one to glare at him though. “Excuse you, I think I’d recognize my friend.”

“No, I’m sorry, this is a different Kendra. Not that Kendra that you’re talking about.”

“Yes it is! Kendra! She has a brother named Seth who’s 15, has parents Scott and Marla. Her name is literally Kendra Sorenson! It’s all exactly the same!”

“Well… they’re different.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Prove it.”

“Prove that the girl that you knew is dead and buried in a cemetery considering that you were apparently there for? And that this Kendra is not that Kendra come back to life? That they just happen to be similar?”

“… when you put it like that…” Brittany muttered.

“No! Kendra tell him! You know us!” Alyssa stared at her intently.

“I- I’m sorry… I don’t know you.”

Alyssa stared, “Kendra…”

Bracken coughed, “right, like I said, different Kendra.”

“But then why were you avoiding me!”

“Maybe cause you were stalking her?” Mumbled Bracken.

“And who even are you?!” Alyssa snapped, spinning to face Bracken.

“I am Kendra’s boyfriend, Bracken.” He wrapped his arm around Kendra.

She leaned into him.

“Did you kidnap her!?” Alyssa was ready to fight, Trina right there with her.

They were causing a scene.

“What!? Of course not!?”

“Kendra its okay, you can come with us, you don’t have to stay with this guy, did he fake your death?”

Kendra wanted to scream, they were so right and so wrong.

“He didn’t kidnap me, and I don’t know you!” Kendra hated lying to them. But it was necessary.

“URRGH” Alyssa looked angry and upset. Kendra felt really bad for this.

“But… you’re-“

“Look, I’m sorry that she’s not the Kendra you knew and loved, but you have to respect that. They might be similar but they’re not the same.”

“THEY’RE LITERALLY IDENTICAL IN EVERY WAY!!” Alyssa was very very upset.

“Well, the world works in strange ways.” He grabbed Kendra’s hand, “Time for us to go, nice meeting you.”

He quickly pulled her away, both grabbing their hot chocolates as they left.

“They really are determined huh?”

“Yeah.”

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

“Okay girls, operation: save Kendra from the kidnapping pretty boy, is a go.”


End file.
